Irish dramatist & socialist (1856 – 1950)
I have been trying to capture indications of how true this saying may be.
Some of these do demonstrate merely different English words we use in
the two countries and some are just signs that I thought are just fun or
different from what we generally see. This is Edition 1.
What a gorgeous weekend here. Saturday was matinee day at the theaters. We tried out “The 39 Steps” which is a comedic spoof of Alfred Hitchcock’s 1935 movie that was based upon a 1915 novel by John Buchan. A very unusual and funny production of a Hitchcock mystery thriller and they even figured out a way to include the usual Hitchcock cameo appearance that he always made in his own productions. Before that it was lunch at the Duke of York Plaza Saturday market. Dinner at Patara, an outstanding Thai place on Beauchamp Place in Brompton.
Sunday saw us taking the train to Hampton Court Palace which is about 35 minutes outside of the center of London. The building of Hampton Court was begun by the archbishop of York but taken over by Henry VIII in the early 16th century as one of his many homes. It’s palatial construction has the fingerprints of numerous royals over the centuries as well as architect Christopher Wren. And it would not be a royal homestead without fabulous gardens of which it has many. We returned to Patara on Sunday night and will have to work on not embarrassing ourselves by easily returning there every evening. It is really excellent.
At Hampton Court Palace there was a German speaking couple and he was going to take her picture in front of one of the gardens. A German speaking lady rushed over and the nature of the German conversation was revealed when she prepared to take a picture of the couple together. And just before taking the picture she said to them…”say cheese.” Ah yes, English. Still the number one language around the world.
That was the plan for today. View the symbolic Changing of the Guard ceremony at Buckingham Palace with its celebratory atmosphere (not to be confused in any way with the solemn Changing of the Guard at the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetery) and then head to the city center for an in-depth visit. But upon arrival at Buckingham, it was clear that the mob present in front of the Buckingham fence and gates would dictate the need to try again later in our visit. There were many warnings from the officers patrolling on horseback that "there are pickpockets in the area." See the sign in the pictures warning the pickpockets that there are undercover officers in the area also. It reminded me of the photo radar warnings to drivers in Denver.
So we spent the next five hours touring the city center on foot. The markets, the plazas, the unique retail makeup of central London with entire areas selling the same type of item such as books, the beautiful buildings, gardens and storefronts. Lunch at La Roche (modern Mediterranean cuisine with Moroccan and Lebanese influences), the Temple Church (http://www.templechurch.com/), Kings College, Trafalgar Square, St. James Park and then dinner at Haandi (North Indian Frontier Cuisine) in the Brompton area.
In rushing through here as a tourist focused on the major sights, it is easy to overlook how beautiful this city is. We are getting to enjoy that aspect of it this time. The buildings with their cleaned exteriors revealing their beautiful architecture, grassy and tree filled squares in every neighborhood, beautiful parks and the flowers adorning windows and facades all over the city.
During our lunch at La Roche we met Sarah the manager. She is probably about thirty and has that medium brown skin color that to me seems common to many nationalities. So I was not sure where she might be from in this city that is more international than anyplace I think I have been. Her answer to that question was Persia. I thought that to be an interesting answer. Perhaps using the word Iran with Americans is deemed potentially bad for business?
I am trying to avoid making this strictly a travelogue but do hope that the places we go and comment about might be helpful to others who will visit here. So while I hope friends and families might find the information useful in knowing what we are up to (but they also have the option of ignoring it), first and foremost these are notes to me for sometime in the future so I can remember what I did with my youth. So I skipped yesterday as our day consisted of a long walk through the Chelsea area and Battersea Park which included a visit to the Royal Hospital where the pensioners live. Interesting and fun to do but certainly not to read about.
The highlight of the day was losing our pubginity. Spell check says there is no such word but there is now. I have decided that a pubgin is someone who has been to the UK many times but never in a pub. We have one right up the street and it was Konnie’s brilliant idea to try it for dinner. With all of those beautiful floral displays on the outside, why not? Bingo! The food was fine, the wine was fine, they don’t smoke in them anymore and we saved a bunch of money.
With Thursday’s forecast of only a 20% chance of rain it seemed like the day to scoot back to the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew which is advertised as the most complete public gardens in the world with 300 acres and about 40,000 plants. It is about a half hour via the Tube from downtown and Kew is a lovely village to visit also. We made a springtime visit there in 2009 which was spectacular but even the late summer visit of today was worth the trip.
So here are way too many pictures and I will tell you up front that if you don’t like ridiculous close ups of flowers and us you might as well skip this one. Oh yes, please check in later as I am working on two “special” posts for publication later in the trip. One is “Signs You Don’t See in the US” and the other will be “The Window Boxes of London.”
One more thing. The kids over here in their school uniforms (blazers, hats, ties, school backpacks etc.) are sooooo cute. I have been afraid to try to take pictures of them except for the one from behind at the pastry counter but hopefully I’ll get up the nerve to ask a parent sometime.
A day that started crisp and clear turned to rain. The drizzle and Underground strike altered our plans and we headed to Westminster Abbey instead of to the theater district where we planned to consider a matinee. As is typical of the cathedrals from that era, it is spectacular including nearly a millennium of history on the site. Admission was a head turning 15 pounds (about $25 dollars) but when you get inside it now includes a free thorough audio guide which makes the price more reasonable.
Then came one of the reasons I wanted to try this "living" in a city that has everything experience. We finished at Westminster about 2 and, since the drizzle had ended, decided to hoof it the mile to the theater district and see if we could grab tickets to the longest running play in the world, Agatha Christie's "The Mousetrap" which is in its 58th year. Yes year. 24,075 performances as of this afternoon. We made it with time to spare including time to eat a sandwich while sitting on the traffic circle at a spot called Seven Dials (which has a history going back to the 17th century) and enjoyed a fun production in a quaint and intimate London theater. A two plus mile walk home, dinner in the Shepherd Market area, an area with beginnings in 1735, and a trip to the Rose Garden at Hyde Park and the day ended as it began, crisp and clear.
Traffic on the main city streets was barely moving tonight and we are hoping for Underground service on Wednesday.
Here are some sights from today.
The weather remains as we expected with temperatures in the mid-sixties and overcast. A quiet day here as expected which started with getting my first run of the trip and the opportunity to see how huge the bike sharing program is here. We have a superb one in Denver which has come under fire by the Republican gubernatorial candidate as something that "could threaten our personal freedoms." (http://www.denverpost.com/election2010/ci_1567389) It appears that they are at an even greater risk to a loss of freedom here because of their efforts to reduce traffic and pollution and stay healthy.
We visited the Victoria & Albert Museum, lunched at a cute Italian cafe (Orsini) and experienced Harrods. The V&A was enjoyable with our time spent in the glass art, architecture and Muslim art areas. Dale Chihuly, one of our favorites, still commands the entrance area as he did when we visited in 2001. When you are here you will want to at least do what we did and pass through Harrods but basically it is a gaudy, overpriced retail experience. I have tried to demonstrate with pictures from their "Pet Kingdom" department. As I was being clandestine, the pix are not well done and not even in focus all the time but I did not want to risk my camera being confiscated. Dinner was at a lovely Italian restaurant called Caraffini in the Sloane Square area.
Except for coffee for some reason that I am unaware of, prices here are a killer. Food is generally priced in numbers approximating home but that is before the currency conversion from pounds to dollars which whacks you another 60%. It is making Manhattan look like a bargain. Until tomorrow…
We were so European on Sunday. Up late, coffee late, dinner late. Okay, dinner was at 7 but that's late for us. But the advantage of being Americans who go for the senior citizen discount at dinner is that, in Europe, there is always a table.
Our coffee stroll took us through our embassy filled Belgravia neighborhood including a stop at Hyde Park where, just like at home, there was a mob of people running to raise money for something. Later we decided to take one of the walking tours in one of our many guidebooks, choosing to stroll through our neighborhood, Hyde Park and Mayfair, the neighborhood we stayed in when we were here with the Kepner Educational Excellence Program students in 2009. It was supposed to take two hours but five minutes in we hit Patisserie Valerie which caused a slight delay. Then on to Hyde Park, Serpentine Lake, Speaker's Corner, lovely Mayfair with its many beautiful renovated buildings and dinner at Mayfair Tandoori. While the call of more Lebanese food for the second night in a row was very strong, we decided to not get in a rut…just yet.
So a not very interesting day but there will be a lot of those. Some pictures to hopefully add some flavor though. Victoria and Albert Museum plus Harrod's on Monday…we think.
The house sitter is in place, a gardener hired to protect all of Konnie’s hard work this year and the trans-Atlantic flight complete. I will try to make the next 23 days more observational than “we did this and that” but as this trip is our experimental “what would it be like to live here trip,” some days it will just be a travel diary.
We arrived at Heathrow at noon on Saturday, September 4. We love the non-stop from Denver. Leaving later in the evening without an interim stop just makes the trip more comfortable and the transition to the new time zone, i.e. staying up for the rest of the first European day, much easier. Our townhouse is comfortable, equipped and roomy and, most importantly, is on a dead end lane of row townhouses in a residential neighborhood resulting in a quiet environment for those who tend to have difficulty sleeping. Not me of course!
We are close to Hyde Park, Victoria Station, Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, Westminster Cathedral, the grocery store, other key sights and, we got lucky again, a Starbucks. Or, as the picture of a freestanding Starbuck’s kiosk on the street near Victoria Station might indicate, perhaps their habit here is even worse than in US cities so always being close to one may require no luck at all.
I have learned to label the pictures which might help one understand why I might have taken some of the less obvious ones. Just click on the image to see a description. For today, they are just some very obvious kind of London views. Thanks for following us.
What is it about growing up in a very small town and that connection with those you went to school with or even only knew remotely that seems to last a lifetime? Tonight (August 18, 2010) about 25 people, most of whom graduated from Short High School in the 1960s, gathered at El Reparo, Liberty, Indiana's finest restaurant. People came from as far away as Evansville, Dayton and Cincinnati on a weeknight to reminisce and catch up on each others lives and families. Many had not seen each other for 40 years and more. A great time seemed to be had by all. I know it was a blast for me. We need to keep growing this event. Thanks to those who made the effort to be there. Especially Elaine, Jackie and Jim. We shall do it again.
And thanks to Jose and Carlos at El Reparo. As always, a terrific job of taking care of us.
On Monday of this week I flew from Denver to Indianapolis for the purpose of picking up my Mother and flying her back to Colorado the next day. She will be 85 on August 27 and because of the way my schedule works this month, Konnie and I decided we would bring her to Colorado to spend a week of birthday celebration with us in advance of the actual date. After slipping in a dinner in Richmond, Indiana on Monday with my sisters and Mom, on Tuesday we flew to Denver. After spending a couple of days in Denver we drove to our place at 7800 feet 15 miles south of the nearest city lights of Steamboat Springs.
The nights are very cool here right now (about 45 degrees), the crescent moon sets before dark and there has not been a cloud in the sky for either day we have been here. So there they are, Carl Sagan's billions and billions of stars and other objects in the universe. They are incredibly dense here right now. It is perfectly clear and there is the Milky Way vivid in the pitch black sky and now add the Perseid meteor shower that has been displaying itself our first two nights here. Scores of long meteors, two simultaneously crossing paths and one crossing nearly the entire visible sky, long enough to detect a red color on its tip. Gorgeous.
Back to Denver from Steamboat on Monday. Returning Mother to Indiana on Tuesday and then staying two more days in the Hoosier state to conduct some local business.
